Don’t Panic, Drive-Bys! The Obama Presidency is Just Getting Started

Jun 18, 2014

RUSH: So I got in here today, and I got a flash e-mail: “Hey, Rush, I know you’ve got a ban on MSNBC, but F. Chuck Todd said that the Obama presidency is over. It’s done. It’s fini because of the latest NBC News/Washington Post poll.” I’m sad to say that F. Chuck Todd is wrong. In fact, the correct way to look at the Obama administration is that it’s just now getting started. It is in no way over. It is in no way crumbling. It may be in public opinion, but that doesn’t matter. I will explain myself in great detail in mere moments.

But the take-away is, this administration, this presidency is not cratered, it’s not over, it’s just now really beginning. I mean, the things that have happened up ’til now I was worried would happen, predicted they would happen, knew they would happen. That’s why I warned everybody about it back in January of 2009. But what is happening now is essentially really intensifying in the last six months, and what is going to continue to happen from now ’til the end of this administration, it’s really only just beginning.

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RUSH: The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll which just has the Drive-By Media in fits of depression. They are so low. They believe the Regime is over. Public opinion is everything to them. By the way, I’ve looked at this poll and it’s bad for Obama, but it’s not good for the Republicans, either.

I mean, this does not automatically mean (when you get into it you’ll see what I mean) that the Republicans gonna automatically benefit from this. Because there are some other indications in this polling data where we are culturally and socially that are not what you and I would hope would be a majority.

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RUSH: F. Chuck Todd on the Today show today. Cohost Savannah Guthrie talking to F. Chuck about this devastating NBC News/Washington Post poll. She said, “Foreign policy — which for many, many years was a strong suit of Obama’s — is now suddenly tanking,” Chuck.

TODD: It’s cratering. I mean, if you think about it, let’s go back to September. Syria. Then you have the crisis in Ukraine, and then you had the situation with the Bergdahl trade, then we can talk the Iranian negotiation. We can talk about the Middle East, uh, flaring up, and now the situation with Iraq. Everything is a negative. And these are now creating a situation. Lowest ever! Lowest job rating, lowest approval rating among foreign policy.

RUSH: He’s in shock. F. Chuck is in shock. The new NBC poll shows Obama unpopular across the board. Savannah Guthrie said, “On competence — people who think the president is competent — 50% incompetent. Fifty percent! What happened,” Chuck?

TODD: Well, this is a situation of the VA. And compared to the President Bush, he’s actually in a worse situation. The Obama administration is seen as less competent than the Bush administration was post-Katrina. This is as if, uh, the public is saying, “Hey, buddy, your presidency is over. You may not believe it is, but your ability to lead and convince us that you say you have the right policies anymore? We’re not listening.”

RUSH: It doesn’t matter, though, Chuck. But, you see, Chuck’s in shock. They’re all in shock. Obama’s seen as less competent than Bush post-Katrina? That’s… That’s… Oh, you don’t know how that hits them! That’s just the worst. So, “Hey, buddy,” the public is saying, “your presidency is over.” It isn’t. I’m not a broken record. I’m just gonna tell you ’til you get tired of hearing it. It’s just now starting.

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RUSH: We last left Chuck Todd in shock on the Today show. The Obama administration is seen as less competent than the Bush administration was post-Katrina. Oh, my God! Folks, that is the bottom of the barrel as far as they’re concerned. That’s lower than Nixon. That’s worse than anything. That’s when everybody justifiably hates you. Bush post-Katrina. Total incompetence, total uncaring, total lack of compassion. Just utterly, totally removed. Don’t care about the pain and suffering of anybody. And Obama has sunk to lower levels than even Bush at that point in time.

They are devastated. It’s their own poll. And so F. Chuck says, “This is as if the public is saying, ‘Hey, buddy, your presidency is over. You may not believe it is, but your ability to lead and convince us that you have the right policies anymore, we’re not listening.'”

Chuck, he hasn’t had the right policies from day one. He hasn’t led on anything since day one. He has imposed. The people of this country have been governed against their will since the beginning. Obama has never had majority support for Obamacare. He never led on the issue. He’s not led on the issue of basically opening the border. He’s doing this in defiance of public opinion, Chuck. Where have you been? There has been no assemblage of majorities, either of thinking or of votes or whatever that backs up any of this other than Obamacare and the things he had to do in the darkness of night to get that vote.

The American people have never been in support of this. The Washington Redskins will tell you that the Obama presidency is not over. The millions of people who lost the doctor they like and the health insurance policy they liked and saw their premiums and deductibles skyrocket, they will tell you the Obama presidency is not over. The families of the people killed in Benghazi will tell you this administration and presidency is not over. By the way, I called it and I’ve got a story, and it’s coming up. This guy that they captured — do you know this guy was interviewed by CNN and the New York Times a year ago?

All the Regime would have had to do was pretend to be reporters, and they could have captured the guy. I don’t think there was that great a desire to capture the guy a year ago, but the media found him. Anyway, there’s a story in which it is reported that he blamed the video for making his group do what they did. I told you. But I get ahead of myself. The president is releasing mass murdering terrorists and replenishing the enemy from Guantanamo Bay. That doesn’t sound like a presidency which is over. The president’s hell-bent on shutting town coal plants. And just today, a story coming up, the haughty John Kerry, who once, by the way, served in Vietnam, has declared that 10% of the world’s oceans will now be placed off-limits.

The destruction of the oceans, you don’t know how bad it is. They’re gonna set up the equivalent of wildlife reserves for marine life. Marine life reserves. You’re not supposed to go in there and touch ’em. You can’t sail across. I want to know what 10%. Anyway, with all this going on, this is John Kerry shutting down 10% of the oceans again on a hoax. Remember it was Ted Danson in 1989 who said, “We only got 10 years if we don’t quit the oceans are all dead.” That was 1989. These people are just beginning, is my point. There’s nothing over here.

One more F. Chuck sound bite. It’s the kicker. Savannah Guthrie says, “Chuck, do you still see a real Tea Party, non-Tea Party split in the GOP? And let me ask you about Hillary Clinton. Because you took a poll basically asking, Â‘would you vote for HillaryÂ’ to a general electorate? The numbers you got were saying yes, 38%, no, 37%, and maybe, 23%.”

TODD: This is a reminder she’s not — you know, some in the media treat it as if it’s a coronation, that President Clinton is an automatic in 2016. This is the voters saying, “No, she’s not.” She’s an automatic with Democrats. Her numbers with Democrats are better now than they’ve every been. Much better than they were eight years ago. With the rest of the public, it’s another question.

RUSH: Oh, my gosh, folks, do you understand what they just learned in their own poll? That Hillary is not gonna be coronated. The Democrats love her, but elsewhere it’s a toss-up. She’s not going to be coronated. You need to understand, these people like Chuck Todd and everybody else inside the Beltway, to them this is utterly devastating. They live in a world where they think everybody looks at the world and events the way they do. So they have a poll, it’s their own poll, it’s devastating for Obama, and to them when you get numbers like this your presidency is over and the American people don’t like you and it’s fini. But these people have a profound ignorance. It’s like they’re behind a wall and cannot see this administration for what it is.

They plug Obama into the Democrat presidential peg, and they assign to him the behavioral modes, the structure of every Democrat president who’s ever been without looking at what he’s really doing and what his policies really are, there’s no curiosity, there’s no analysis. And so in their world, which is very narrow, by the way, in their world, which is very small, in their world, where every poll counts — like global warming is essentially a poll. A poll of scientists combined with computer models has created an outright hoax. There is no evidence of global warming, but these people, my God, it’s sizzling out there, it’s heating up. It doesn’t matter that the real temperature isn’t moving. That’s not the narrative. The narrative is it’s going to in a hundred years because of X, Y, Z. It never matters that X, Y, and Z is faulty data being input.

So they don’t see that polling data. The Regime does not gonna be affected by this. If anything, this is going to ramp up Obama even more. This is not gonna slow him down. This is gonna speed him up. This is gonna create spite. This is gonna create a reaction in the Regime of, “Oh, yeah? You don’t like me so far? Well, watch this.” I keep thinking of Carpenters, 1969, We’ve Only Just Begun, ’cause that’s where we are. One more before the break and I’m gonna get into the innards of this poll as it relates to Republicans. F. Chuck didn’t even see that. It’s not good for Republicans, but it’s so bad for Obama that I’m telling you, there’s full-fledged panic and depression inside the whole media because of this poll.

On Squawk Box, back to CNBC. The guest was chief Washington correspondent John Harwood. He’s reporting on the poll and says this.

HARWOOD: It’s an ugly poll for Obama. The high thirties, low forties are sort of where presidents are when they’re in big trouble. He’s getting the low — the lower bounds here. People are drawing the conclusion that events are controlling this president rather than the president controlling events, which, obviously presidents don’t control the world. But the accumulation of things — Iraq, Syria, problems with Russia and Ukraine. All of those things are, uh, making people feel as if, uh, the United States, uh, is weak at the moment, that the country is on the wrong track, and this is… It’s worrisome for Democrats.

RUSH: Wait a minute, now. It’s a small one, I will admit, but this could be the first crack in the Limbaugh Theorem. The Limbaugh Theorem explains how Obama never gets blamed for anything. The Limbaugh Theorem explains how Obama is never held accountable. The Limbaugh Theorem explains how Obama distances himself from his own policies. The Limbaugh Theorem explains how he gets away with that with the media.

But if you listen to Harwood here, there’s justification in blaming Obama for some of this stuff, particularly foreign policy. So it could be a little crack in the Limbaugh Theorem. Dick and Liz Cheney have a really, really good and powerful op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today called, “The Collapsing Obama Doctrine.”

They get right up to the moment of truth and they just pull back slightly in leveling their charges, but the intent is clear. It’s devastating to Obama and to the Regime, to his competence, to his policy, foreign and domestic. It’s really a good piece and we’ll try to get to it during the program today. But another obscene profit time-out. We’ll come back and get into the innards of this NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

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RUSH: Back to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. The news is devastating for Obama, but it doesn’t matter, for all the reasons that I detailed in the previous hour. It matters to the media; they’re devastated. They’re devastated for a number of reasons. I mean, they’ve been doing everything they can to prop the guy up. They’ve been ignoring all the scandals.

They’ve been following the administration line on blaming the Republicans for everything. They’ve been propping Obama up. He’s great, he’s funny, all this. So there’s gotta be a little bit of personal disappointment because they have made it their mission to protect Obama, and they’ve gotta do it for two more years. And, you know, I can just tell you…

Again, this is another reason why — just a little bit of inside baseball here — that I decided a long time ago not to tie myself to political candidates, other than presidential races. There’s a host of reasons. One, I can’t control what they’re gonna do, and I have found that many of them change once they get elected. I don’t want to have people say, “Hey, you told us that this guy was good!” I don’t want to deal with that.

Since I have no control over what they’re gonna do and what they’re gonna be policy-wise and how Washington is gonna change them, I don’t. In order to explain this in the very early days of the program, ’cause it was a… The media accused me early on of tying myself to candidates and tried to give me credit when they won and tried to sock it to me when they lost.

My rejoinder to them has always been, “Well, look, my success is not determined by who wins elections.” It can’t be. That’s not something I was ever going to permit. It never was the case. I was the first to tell ’em: “Look, if I had the kind of power you guys are assigning to me, no Democrat would ever win another election, and clearly that happens.” I’ve striven to keep everything and myself in perspective.

But the Drive-Bys are quite different. They have openly aligned themselves with this president and with every other Democrat president. But this one particularly because of the historical nature and the sympathy they have for minorities. They have openly abandoned all precedence of objectivity. There isn’t any news reported anymore.

All there is is the daily narrative that advances the Democrat Party agenda, the Obama agenda. That’s what the news is today. There isn’t any news. So when they get a poll like this NBC News/Washington Post poll which shows the bottom falling out of Obama, not only does it hurt them because their guy has hit rock bottom (the way they look at things), but they weren’t able to do anything about it.

So they take it personally.

They know full well what they’re doing every day. They know full well they’re pumping this guy up. They know full well they’re trying to protect him from just this kind of thing. There is never any serious analysis of his policies. There is never any curiosity about any of the scandals. There is not any curiosity about the virtual trashing of this Constitution this Regime is engaged in.

There is no concern whatsoever for what has happened to this country. They continue to report lies about the economy and the great job market and economic growth and all of that. They do this in an effort to keep “this” from happening — and by “this,” I mean this devastating poll from NBC/Wall Street Journal. So they take it personally two ways: Their guy is on the skids and they weren’t able to stop it.

So they are understandably shocked and depressed, and that’s why you have Chuck running around saying, “Hey, buddy, your presidency is over, it’s cratered, it’s crashed. Nothing you can do about it.” But they’re missing some things in the poll that they will find after they get over this shock, and again these are upsetting things to me. Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

Fifty-seven percent of the people in this poll say they approve of the proposal to eliminate carbon emissions by 30%. It’s an attack on coal-fired power plants, and it’s an attack on your electricity bill, which would skyrocket. To see that 57% of the people in this poll support that, that’s not good. Sixty-one percent believe “global climate change requires immediate action or some action to combat it.”

It’s the first poll I’ve seen where more than 5% care about it. I’m not making that up. If you do a poll of issues and ask the American people to tell you what’s the most important, global warming is down there at number four in many of these polls. Immigration and the economy are always at the top. So I’m a little dubious of this. Another six in 10, 60% “say the problems associated with the VA are due to long-standing bureaucratic issues.”

Only 14% say they’re “due to poor management” by the Regime. So in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll where the results have the Obama approval rating at rock bottom, only 14% blame him for what’s gone wrong with the VA. So the Limbaugh Theorem is still alive and well on certain issues. But that, again, is hard. “Fifty-nine percent in this poll oppose closing the Guantanamo Bay prison for terror suspects.”

That is up seven points since 2009. That’s not upsetting. That’s not gonna look good for Obama. And only 27% say the Afghanistan war was worth it, down 13 points from a year ago.